Bush Signs Bill Enabling Martial Law

Spectrum

Elite Poster
BGOL Investor
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| Bush Signs Bill Enabling Martial Law |
| from the maybe-sweden dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Saturday October 28, @16:42 (United States) |
| http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/28/1934208 |
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An anonymous reader writes to point us to an article on the meaning of a
new law that President Bush signed on Oct. 17. It seems to [0]allow the
President to impose martial law on any state or territory, using federal
troops and/or the state's own, or other states', National Guard troops.
From the article: "In a stealth maneuver, President Bush has signed into
law a provision which, according to Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont),
will actually encourage the President to declare federal martial law. It
does so by revising the Insurrection Act, a set of laws that limits the
President's ability to deploy troops within the United States. The
Insurrection Act (10 U.S.C.331 -335) has historically, along with the
Posse Comitatus Act (18 U.S.C.1385), helped to enforce strict
prohibitions on military involvement in domestic law enforcement. With
one cloaked swipe of his pen, Bush is seeking to undo those
prohibitions." Here is a link to [1]the bill in question. The relevant
part is Sec. 1076 about 3/4 of the way down the page.

Note: the site hosting the article is already sluggish; I was unable to
prime the CoralCDN cache with it. Please consider mirroring this article
if you are able.

Discuss this story at:
http://politics.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=06/10/28/1934208

Links:
0. http://towardfreedom.com/home/content/view/911/
1. http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h109-5122
 
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